Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 3/11/18
From Press Releases
Trailing by one goal at the halftime break, the Hawks outscored the Commodores five goals to two in the second half as the Saint Joseph’s women’s lacrosse team took home a 12-10 win over Vanderbilt in front of a packed house on Sunday afternoon on Sweeney Field. With the win, the Hawks snapped a two-game losing streak and improve to 3-3 while the Commodores fall to 5-2.
Junior midfielder Rebecca Lane scored four goals and graduate student goalkeeper Liz O’Sullivan held the Commodores to their lowest goal-scoring total of the season to lead the Hawks to the win.
“Our team stepped up strong today,” said head coach Alex Kahoe (Agnes Irwin) following SJU’s third win of the season. “In the second half, they really stepped it up and really were able to pull it away together. We’ve been in this situation before, and I’m proud of them to be able to turn it around and flip the switch for the second half. Bec [Lane] really stepped it up offensively with four goals and Liz [O’Sullivan] really stepped up and had some big saves in the cage.”
Junior attacker Francesca Donato (Neshaminy) added two goals and two assists in the victory, as she and Lane combined for eight points on the afternoon.
Vanderbilt’s Emily Mathewson (Garnet Valley) had four goals and five draw controls.
The Hawks jumped out to an early four-goal lead on goals from freshman attacker Stephanie Kelly (29:38), Lane (28:02), and Donato (25:26, 25:06).
Vanderbilt’s Kayla Peterson chipped back with back-to-back goals (20:13, 18:13) to pull the Commodore’s deficit to two, but senior midfielder Kate Payne (14:21) and sophomore midfielder Julia Pash (12:21) scored two of the game’s next three to keep SJU at a three-goal advantage, 6-3, heading into the final third of the first half.
The Commodores would then tear of on a 5-1 run, which included a trio of eight meter goals, to take an 8-7 edge into the halftime break; Julie Blaze (EMO goal, 11:24) and Mathewson (9:58, 8:44) combined to equalize the score at six apiece before Lane put away SJU’s go-ahead just 37 seconds later to put the Hawks back up, 7-6, with 8:07 to play in the first.
Peterson took advantage of a Vanderbilt EMO to score her fourth of the half at the 7:05 mark to even the score back up at seven, and Mathewson scored her third of the half on an eight meter with 19 ticks on the scoreboard to put the visitors up by one, 8-7, after the first 30:00.
The Commodores came out of the halftime break firing and taking a two-goal advantage on a Melanie Becker unassisted score at the 26:30 mark.
From there, it was all about the Hawks’ offense.
Lane (20:55) and junior midfielder Ally Beck (19:19) erased the deficit with unassisted scores, evening the slate at nine.
Vanderbilt took its final lead of the game less than a minute later on Mathewson’s fourth of the day (18:37), an EMO goal, but Lane converted on an eight meter (15:50), Payne scored an EMO goal on a feed from Donato just 67 seconds later (14:43), and senior midfielder Aly Gormley scored unassisted just 70 seconds after that (13:33) to put the Hawks up, 12-10, entering the final frame of the second half.
From there, it was all about the Hawks’ defense.
Just ten seconds after taking its two-goal lead on Gormley’s first score of the season, SJU was hit with its fourth yellow card of the day, resulting in an unreleasable, two-minute penalty and two-minute, extra player opportunity for Vanderbilt. SJU’s defensive unit did a brilliant job of killing off that two-minute, man-down disadvantage.
O’Sullivan then shut down a Becker shot with 8:00 to play and a Gabrielle Fornia shot with 2:56 to play to preserve the 12-10 advantage as time expired.
The graduate student goalkeeper was phenomenal in net, making nine saves, four in the first half and five in the second, and holding the Commodore offense to a season-low 10 goals scored in the full 60:00.
For the game, Saint Joseph’s owned a 32-28 edge in shots with two more than Vanderbilt in each half, while the Commodores owned a slight 16-15 edge in ground balls. Despite winning 15 of the game’s 24 draw controls and six of eight in the second half, the Commodores turned the ball over 10 times in the second half the give the Hawks the offensive advantage.
Beck, who came up big in scoring the 9-9 equalizer in the second half, went for two ground balls and a game-high four caused turnovers, while Donato and senior defender Catie Vivian were good for three ground balls apiece. Pash went for one goal and one assist and matched a game-high five draw controls.
Lehigh 12, Fairfield 11
The Mountain Hawks fell into an early 4-0 hole, but responded with the next four goals to pull even, on their way to a victory at Fairfield. Junior Kellie Gough scored three goals for her third hat trick of the season while senior Kierstyn Voiro (Moorestown) was stellar at both ends of the field, which included scoring what proved to be the game-winning goal for the second time in three days. With their third straight win, the Mountain Hawks snapped a five-game losing streak against Fairfield dating back to 2010 and improved to 5-3 on the season heading into their Patriot League opener at Boston University on Saturday.
“We definitely played better as the game went on,” said Lehigh head coach Jill Redfern. “I think we solved what they were doing on attack a little bit and settled down defensively, and then our attack responded by executing some of our offense later in the game. Those two things combined really made a difference.”
One game after scoring the game-winning goal in triple overtime at Mount St. Mary’s, Voiro finished Sunday afternoon with two goals, three groundballs, three caused turnovers and two draw controls.
“Voiro had a great game,” said Redfern. “She had really big plays on defense and her goals came at critical times. Great game for her.”
Sophomore Sondra Dickey (Conestoga) posted a goal, assist, four draw controls, two groundballs and two caused turnovers, corralling the biggest draw control of the game with less than 10 seconds remaining to secure the one-goal victory.
In total, four Mountain Hawks posted multiple goals. Freshman Julianne Puckette (Radnor) scored her first two career goals while junior Olivia Kelly scored Lehigh’s first two goals of the game. Junior Courtney Henig (Notre Dame-NJ) tallied four points behind a goal and three assists.
Penn State 17, Albany 7
Sophomore Maria Auth tied her career-high with five points and four goals to help lead No. 17 Penn State past Albany in non-conference action..
Penn State (4-3) opened the scoring as junior Madison Carter extended her goal streak to 10 games with her 24th of the year off a great feed from senior Shelby Wells at the 28:48 mark.
However, Albany (0-6) responded on the ensuing possession as Emma Powlin fired home the equalizer at the 28:00 mark for the 1-1 score.
Following a six-minute period without a goal, sophomore Kristin Roberto connected on a free-position score at the 21:17 mark to ignite a 6-0 Penn State run as six different players registered goals before Madison Conway ended the spurt for the Great Danes with her tally at the 12:23 mark.
Wells, senior’s Maggie Gallagher and Katie O’Donnell (Henderson), freshman Sophia Triandafils and junior Delaney Muldoon added the goals for Penn State who held the 7-2 lead.